Typical of the atmospheric, silvery-grey winter scenes produced by van Ostade, here he successfully marries anecdotal detail, figures playing and going about their business on the ice, with a convincing evocation of the winter landscape. This picture was given to Lady Wallace by Alfred de Rothschild in exchange for another painting by Isack van Ostade, and thus was the last work of art to enter the Wallace Collection before Lady Wallace’s bequest in 1897.